Tasers were developed as a non-lethal option to bring dangerous situations under control. But law enforcement officials are now using them with wild abandon in cases where simple diplomacy or a little hard work would otherwise suffice.

In the past I’ve written about the police tasering of a UCLA student for refusing to show his school ID, as well as the time a cop tasered an 11 year old at school because the officer on hand apparently couldn’t physically restrain him?!? (Gee, what would they have done 10 years ago?)

Police have also used Tasers against peaceful protesters (NPR audio about tasering protesters), a pregnant woman (8 months) and an elderly man who called 911 to get medical attention for his diabetic seizure.

So who’s next? Maybe you.
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This story is simply heartbreaking. This beautiful, intelligent woman submitted to years of domestic abuse, all culminating in the day that her abusive husband forced her son to pick up a camcorder and video tape him beating her!

The husband’s goal was to document exactly why she was to blame, as if to preserve it for future posterity. All he managed to do was demonstrate that she was simply trying to make him a sandwich.
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I was tipped off to this ACLU article by T-Critic, whom I have a daily subscription to and always enjoy seeing the new T-Shirt designs.

Did you know that wearing a t-shirt with Arabic writing to an airport is the equivalent of a “person wearing a t-shirt at a bank stating, ‘I am a robber’”? No? Then you clearly don’t work with the TSA, who barred Reed Jarrar over there from boarding his flight at JFK because his shirt had terrifying non-Roman characters on it.

The shirt did also have English characters under the Arabic script (it says “We will not be silent” — no, but you certainly will be delayed), but that could easily be a terrorist trick, trying to convince gullible American infidels that the shirt doesn’t actually say “If you can read this I am going to run this airplane into the Kennedy Center.”

The ACLU has taken Jarrar’s case and they encourage passengers across the nation to show up at airports in t-shirts with big cartoon bombs on them or that say “Big Johnson Says You Can Tell a Lot About a Man by the Size of His Shoe Bomb” because frankly donations have been way up over the last couple years.

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Wow. I reported that Bush commuted Libby’s sentence yesterday, but today Keith Olbermann calls for Bush and Cheney to resign and seriously rips them a new one! A few choice comments:

• “I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war.”
• I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod over it.
• I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent.
• I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors.
• And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that Vice President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to Grand Juries and Special Counsel and before a court, in order to protect the mechanisms and particulars of that defamation, with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of becoming an accessory to the obstruction of justice.

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We are squarely in the center of the anniversary of one of the most un-American acts of any President and congress in recorded history - the forced internment during World War II of 120,000 people of Japanese decent - of which 62% were US citizens.

This action was so intolerable that four successive presidents later acted on it. Gerald Ford rescinded the law that enabled the travesty, Jimmy Carter convened a commission to study the effects and issue reparations, Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 into law based on the Carter commission recommendations, and George H.W. Bush signed an appropriation bill authorizing payments.

Our own government’s official apology document stated the internment was based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership”. As citizens we must remember that our own government can, and will, sometimes make horrendous decisions which violate our most basic constitutional rights. It is up to every person of conscious to understand and oppose injustice.
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Three weeks ago CBS News reported that Former White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison for lying to a grand jury. Katie Couric said, “…even people with friends in high places are not above the law”.

But as it turns out, they are. Yesterday President George W. Bush commuted Libby’s jail sentence using the rationale that the 30 month term handed down was “excessive”.
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Finally! A little justice! When I reported on Judge Roy Pearson several weeks ago suing his dry cleaners for $65 Million there were several people who chimed in on the issue. Well, I’m happy to report that not only did Pearson lose the case, but he’s been ordered to pay all the legal fees of the defendant!

On top of that, his job is now in jeopardy and of course he is now infamous enough that no one is ever going to forget what he’s done.
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It’s hard to believe that it’s been 18 years since the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the legendary “tank man”. But this month marks the anniversary, and given that enough time as passed that a new generation has been born and without hearing about it I thought I’d give a little reminder surrounding events of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

Although it is believed that Chinese troops under orders from the communist leadership massacred thousands of people, the event was immortalized in Western media by the famous video footage and photographs of a lone man in a white shirt standing in front of a column of tanks. This man has come to be known as “Tank Man” around the world.

He reportedly said, “Why are you here? You have caused nothing but misery.” As the tank driver attempted to go around him, the “tank man” moved into the tank’s path. He continued to stand defiantly in front of the tanks for some time, then climbed up onto the turret of the lead tank to speak to the soldiers inside. After returning to his position blocking the tanks, the man was pulled aside by onlookers who perhaps feared he would be shot or run over.
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This little tidbit from WorldNetDaily.com

A man trying to pay a fee using $2 bills was arrested, handcuffed and taken to jail after clerks at a Best Buy store questioned the currency’s legitimacy and called police.

According to an account in the Baltimore Sun, 57-year-old Mike Bolesta was shocked to find himself taken to the Baltimore County lockup in Cockeysville, Md., where he was handcuffed to a pole for three hours while the U.S. Secret Service was called to weigh in on the case.

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I’ve seen a ton of videos out there that show officers giving someone the beat down during the commission of a crime, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. The following compilation of videos are, in my opinion examples of police going way beyond the limitations imposed by the laws of the United States.

Some people have argued that videos such as these may be terrible, but they are only an extremely small and not representative sample of police conduct in general. Well, forgive me for being skeptical, but I believe that for every one of these that actually gets caught on video there are probably hundreds that do not. In fact it has been my experience with police officers that they tend to selectively enforce laws as they deem suitable to their individual benefit at the time - even when they are inappropriate or flat our incorrect.
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This is one of the most brilliant and courageous things I’ve ever seen. Thanks to Ruby on Rails Guy for sharing this in the comments of another post.

In 2006 Wafa Sultan was named to Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people “whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world.” They had this to say:

“Sultan’s influence flows from her willingness to express openly critical views on Islamic extremism that are widely shared but rarely aired by other Muslims.”

Sultan believes:

“The trouble with Islam is deeply rooted in its teachings. Islam is not only a religion. Islam (is) also a political ideology that preaches violence and applies its agenda by force.”

Personally, I would go so far as to say that Dr. Wafa Sultan is one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever seen in my life. I would have no problem comparing her to Dr. Martin Luther King.
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Freedom. It’s nice, right? It ought to be… the freedom we enjoy was paid for with the blood of our forefathers, and is maintained by the blood of our siblings. And no freedom is more precious than that of speech. From it all other freedom flows.

Unfortunately there are still many oppressive regimes that do not offer the luxury of free speech, and people are being tortured and killed for speaking out against injustice. (As I’ve often noted.) This is why I have decided to put my money where my mouth is and provide financial support for the Freenet Project.
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